It doesn't make sense.

I stole this, I changed two words:

People work with one set of ideas about how the software is. Everything they do, be it experimental or theoretical work, is informed by, and framed within, that set of ideas. There will be some evidence that doesn't fit, however. At first, that evidence will be ignored or sabotaged. Eventually, though, the anomalies will pile up so high they simply cannot be ignored or sabotaged any longer. Then comes crisis.
13 Things That Don't Make Sense - Michael Brooks.

To me, this is a pretty good explanation of software development, although of course, not in all cases of software development.

It's also a pretty good reason why things like agile, devops, devs, bdd, etc have come about.

We do approach things with a set of ideas and we do frame things with that set of ideas in mind.

We stick to our own ideas, even though some of our ideas have been born out of others' ideas and thoughts and words and we've blindly made them our ideas and thoughts.
- For more on this train of thought refer to Leprechauns of Software Development or various kinds of certification.

When we have ideas that we have actually conceived it can be a good thing because we all have different experiences, we all have different thoughts, we can all add something.

I think the problems occur when we don't let go of theses ideas (when beneficial) and learn from others experiences and listen to others ideas.

A lot of time we don't conceive ideas together for something we are supposed to be working on together.

What's wrong with us?

Doesn't make sense to me.

Make sense to you?

Continuing with the excerpts from 13 Things That Don't Make Sense The next paragraph starts with the sentence:

Crisis, Kuhn said, is soon followed by the paradigm shift in which everyone gains a radically new way of looking at the world.

Does it? Not for software development, not as much as needed.

In the context of software development the sentence would read:

Crisis, Kuhn said, is soon followed by a attempt to throw more people at, work longer hours to stem and follow the procedures that caused the crisis in the first place until the next crisis arrives.

What's wrong with us?

Book review: Dealing with Difficult People

Dealing with Difficult People: 24 Lessons for Bringing Out the Best In Everyone.

Dr. Rick Kirschner(Author), Dr. Rick Brinkman (Author) 

From the back cover:

In every workplace there are difficult people who, at best, make life stressful and, at worst, can keep you from achieving important goals. But it's within your power to bring out the best behaviour in people who are their worst.

If you are interested in working with people more effectively or work with quirky people and aren't sure how to deal with that this book is good place to start.

The book breaks up what it lists as the 10 most unwanted behaviours:

The Tank

The Sniper

The Grenade

The Know-it-All

The Think-They-Know-it-All

The Yes Person

The Maybe Person

The Nothing Person

The No Person

The Whiner

You can pretty much guess the behaviours of each from what they are called and you probably have already matched some to people you know.

I kind of think we all have a little of all of those within is.

The book starts with some initial general ideas for dealing with all 10. Things like:

Understand that everybody reacts differently to these types of behaviour: The person who's most irritating to you may be perfectly acceptable to someone else.

It then goes into Choosing your approach, then understanding the behaviours and intent.  Four intents are written about:
get it done
get it right
get along
get appreciated

It delves a little deeper into communication and briefly discusses things like blending and redirecting. Pygmalion power is also mentioned.

After that it starts focussing in on the list of 10 and digging in deeper to each one.

I found there were some mixed messages, in some sections there are statments such as 'There's no magic formula; you are the best judge of which choice is right in any particular situation' and in a different section there is the following 'Here is a surefire five-step process to break your Nothing Person's silence'

All in all it's a good starting point if you are interested in this kind of thing.  

Read it, ingest it, think about it.

Short book review: Poke The Box - Seth Godin

Poke the Box - Seth Godin


Seth Godin ranting about taking the initiative and starting something. 


Do rather than plan. 


Start rather than wait. 


Don't focus on being right, focus on starting, try and see. 


Don't focus on doing what you're told, focus on doing what you think is worth doing. 


Some lines I liked: 

• The challenge is to focus on the work, not on the fear that comes from doing the work. 
• Those who fear risk also begin to fear movement of any kind. 
• We have little choice but to move beyond quality and seek remarkable, connected and new. 
• Please stop waiting for a map. We reward those who draw maps, not those who follow them. 

Enjoyable read if a little repetitive.

Right and wrong are situational: The Magic Of Metaphor

One of the books I'm currently reading is The Magic Of Metaphor by Nick Owen, I'm approaching the halfway mark and a few passages have stood out and I wanted to share them so here is one to start with.

This is from the section called Pacing and Leading.

Perceptual Positions
Right and wrong are situational.
In the appropriate situation, nothing is wrong.
Without the appropriate situation, nothing is right.
What is right in one case is not what is right in another.
What is wrong in one case is not what is wrong in another.
Primary source: Nick Hindley
General source: Taoist tradition

In the testing arena,in development and in life there are a lot of people and organisations who will state that you must do things this way, it has to be done that way and it should be done like this. All nonsense. Work out what works for you, try different things, experiment, get things wrong, get things right, who is to say what is right and what is wrong? They will both provide a learning experience, take the lesson and move on.